Happy Hour
Miss us? We know you did. Happy Hour returns this week with a new look and format. Now the Film, Music and Interactive Happy Hour, we will continue to host our event at Spitfire in Belltown on the last Wednesday of the month from 5-7 pm. At 6:30 pm, a special guest speaker will give a presentation in the private black box theater in the back of the venue. This Wednesday, we welcome UW Associate Professor Margaret O’Mara, who wrote the tech-focused book Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley. For those who want to continue mingling at the bar, we’ll broadcast the presentation on the monitors located throughout Spitfire. Join us on Wednesday, September 28 for the exciting re-launch of Happy Hour! Presenting partners of this event are Washington Filmworks, The Pacific Northwest Chapter of The Recording Academy, Geekwire, Art of Institute of Seattle, and Spitfire.

KING 5 News
Organizers are following in the pioneering footsteps of Austin’s SXSW music, film and interactive conference with the announcement of the first-ever Seattle Interactive Conference. Scheduled to take place in November at the Washington State Convention Center, the event will be a two-day affair aimed at bringing together the most innovative minds in technology, creativity and business into one place. Expect rousing keynote speakers, informative panels, lively debates, citywide networking events, and plenty of parties. In a nod to true Seattle culture, there will also be a “Battle of the Geek Bands” to honor hometown heroes Pearl Jam on their 20th anniversary as a band.

Hollywood Reporter
Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants to abolish copyright laws and protect Internet privacy, has won a seat in the European Parliament. The Pirate Party captured 7.1% of the Swedish vote Sunday, enough to secure it one of Sweden’s 18 seats in the Europe’s 785-seat parliament. The party wants to deregulate copyright protections, ditch the patent system entirely and greatly restrict government surveillance of Internet users. Though not connected to Sweden’s infamous Pirate Bay file sharing site, the Pirate Party has ridden a wave a popular support following April’s conviction of the four Pirate Bay founders

Wall Street Journal
Last week, Microsoft announced Bing as the name of its new search engine. The company describes Bing as delivering more answers to your search queries directly on the search-results page, so you don’t have to keep hunting around for what you want to find. And, like Google, Bing can be used as a verb. The Wall Street Journal gives Bing a thumbs up, finding that the search engine really did retrieve on-target, useful information on the first try. Read the review on the WSJ website!